Jairus Daughter

Currently reading Joy Harjo (Poet Laureate of the United States in 2019) new and selected poems: 1975-2001 How We Became Human. The cover has a photo of three eagles walking in a row with their wings out.

It is beautiful and harrowing and sorrowful on this Indigenous Peoples Day.

Why Did the Human Cross the Road?
by Jupiter Iris

To be on the other side of the street from a Pride parade has become a sojourn in wonder.

I grew up hearing that gay was abomination, degenerate, depraved, forsaken, invisible.

It was feared, mocked, and reviled. The remedy was in remaining grateful to God.

But I struggled in gratefulness because it came out as pride:

"If I wasn't saved, I would be gay." This placed my righteous works as better than the others.

What if I chose Christianity and I am gay? I tried choosing Christianity and playing straight.

Using a sacred text that outlined cultures wherein the assumption and rules were

multiple partners: Abraham and Hagar and Sarah, Jacob and Leah and Rachel and Bilhah

and Zilpah, even New Testament church rules starting from this place seeking leadership

having just one wife. There was no practical context inside their ancient categories.

Where I need to focus in
reminders to be kind to
one another in everything

I choose to do with a heart
that inclines to be patient
and at peace with all humans.

To be on this side of the Pride parade where love is a gift and a starting point.

So I look at what it means to be thankful to be alive to age and lean into forgiveness.

[ID: Poster sign of the Pride flag with trans and diversity colors in Duluth-Superior Pride. The colors on the rainbow represent life, healing, sunlight, nature, art & harmony, and soul in the order of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. The poster is in front of a tree and is to the right of a wooden bench in front of the entrance to Empire Coffee.]

Wrestling by Jupiter Iris

I didn't know I could be both.

That my romantic attractions
to the feminine was not
something
that could manifest anger in
God.

That I could practice faith and
also
live as a q***r human being.
The information available

to me as a middle school girl was
outdated and used
Biblical texts to give

outdated information spiritual
authority.
Red herrings and straw men
glaringly absurd
and built up only to be shot at
and

knocked down by tirades of hate.
It was as a young adult I came
across q***rness as a joy
and a triumph
and that q***r people
walk in faith too.

When I'm among religious
people
who have swallowed the same
lies
once I spread

I feel out of place.
A traitor, an imposter
hiding my soul because

they only see my faith
and ignore my s*xuality
and gender.

When I'm among people
who share q***rness and
don't share faith,

I feel like a liar and an
enemy because
they only see my q***r-ity

and not my faith.
My faith that helped me
to survive as I am today,

my q***rness that I am
learning to love
who I am today.

Both wrapped up in my spirit
inside this human body and
wanting to make peace

with my communities.
Sometimes I can feel the bleeding
inside as I am divided and
skewered

on an altar in worship
to whichever people I
need to embrace me today.

Do you know what
it's like to grab an angel by the hair
and plead

that the grace you've
begged for your
family be applied

to you before God's throne,
afraid you've caused damage
to loved ones and neighbors?

Bless me God.
Bless me community.
Make me whole.

From page 16 of the Duluth-Superior Pride Zine

Jupiter Iris (she/they) was last seen featured in UW Eau Claire's Foster Gallery Midwest Queeritivities back in February 14, 2020-March 11, 2020. They are excited to submit more work involving the intersections of q***r identity, faith identity, and life lived in metaphorical liminal space. (Thank you Duluth Poetry Chapter for that word: liminal.)

My Goodreads review:

"I think one is supposed to feel smarmy when reading a book from the perspective of the youth we will come to know as President Snow.

It's supposed to feel wrong that I wanted a teenager to fail and be hindered from a better life. After all, a good book leaves you asking what kind of human am I and how do I work at being better for myself and those around me?

Because young Snow desires power, status, and wealth in the absence of wanting that for everyone. He's not breaking rules with a higher moral code to help and love his fellow humans (like Sejanus), he's breaking rules because he believes that his lineage is superior to everyone else and that he alone is entitled to ease, pleasure, and winning at the cost of everyone else's need for a better life. He should be in control of everyone ultimately for security of himself.

He confuses ownership with love in the case of Lucy Gray. Instead of being moved to change his intentions by Sejanus's example, he uses Sejanus's virtue to garner the lifelong sponsorship of the Plinth family because they have money. Otherwise he wouldn't look at them twice due to their district origins.

He's unremarkable and common. Dr. Gaul recognizes someone who will uphold her ideology that humans are inherently base and violent animals needing a zookeeper so she rewards and punishes him into a man after her own image.

Dean Highbottom sees the snake inside Snow and reacts to how this youth triggers what Snow's father did to him personally. And like Dean Highbottom, I the reader have no solution in how to guide an errant youth away from the path of future dictator."

[ID: image is the cover of the book "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" by Suzanne Collins. It is light green and dark green circles, like a target, and in the center is golden graphics of a snake and a mockingjay which represent Coriolanus Snow and Lucy Gray respectively.]

My review on Goodreads:

"This book begins with the first three chapters analyzing categorical rejections of same-s*x relationships and the damaging impact on gay Christians.

The next four chapters deal with the specifics in scripture that have been historically used after Christ and in modern times to teach against homos*xuality.

The last three chapters cover the philosophical arguments for same-s*x orientation as part of humanity which means gay Christians are deserving of the same accomodations as straight Christians and that there is room for holding onto biblical authority with an affirming LGBT stance.

Vines ends his treatise with suggestions for reforming ones church into a welcoming space for all believers and/or making room for groups and Bible studies supporting LGBT Christians."

[ID: the cover of God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines is orange with purple and white text and includes these words:

"The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships"

"This book is a game changer...
every page is brought to life by the author's clear love for Scripture and deep, persistent faith." RACHEL HELD EVANS, author of A Year of Biblical Womanhood.]

Another story from the cat's perspective:

Our next short story is up on our Cat Chat Writers blog!! We decided to write a short story about a cat being adopted…but write it from the cat’s perspective!!

The next one up is “Sawyer Prefers Blondes” by me, Amanda Leigh!! All about my boy, Sawyer, from his point of view.

My review on Goodreads:

"Excellent resource for broad strokes across the Disability Justice and Liberation movements and Sins Invalid organization. This workbook includes a glossary of terms, quotes from the people involved in the collective movements, and references for those seeking more detailed information on the topics briefly described in this overview intersecting disability among the most marginalized and vulnerable people of the world."

Sins Invalid " This primers structure.... we wrote these words while living our cripped out realities: we wrote them on commodes, while using heating pads, while on painkillers, while twisting in pain, while getting IV infusions, while in bed.....
...'skin', the images that offer us mirrors and we wrap around ourselves
...'tooth' , cutting thoughts from disability justice activists
..'bones', the structures that are central to our work "

[image description from Sins Invalid: a gradient lilac and brown background with a pattern of skin cells over it. A series of pointy teeth hovers above a bee on a flower, a curved 's"pine, octopus tentacles, a baby deer with a little back leg, and a number of beautiful mlivingRareutated flowers.]

Sins Invalid

From my most recent article "Disability Pride Is For All" below:

"In this way, living disabled is seen as just as valuable and worthy as living able-bodied. It puts us on an equal status to our peers so we are given inclusion instead of exclusion. Disabled bodies are not incorrect or wrong and mustn’t be seen as a problem to solve when it comes to physical and digital spaces. The physical and digital space must be corrected and righted for the audience occupying the physical and digital space. This is what we mean by love, equity, and justice work. Judy promoted it and lived it. She and Brad Lomax spearheaded the work to undermine a nefarious reality that exists in many private spaces by making it a public health crisis"



Patient Worthy

Disability Pride Is For All - Patient Worthy Contributor Rebekah Palmer writes about the importance of disability pride month and what it means to include the disabled.

Next up with the Cat Chat:

And here is our next short story on our Cat Chat Writers blog!! We decided to write a short story about a cat being adopted…but write it from the cat’s perspective!!
The second one up is “Pine and Lavender” by Jessica VanderWerff.

My recent story for The Cat Chat is an autobiographical account of how the first cat who owned me came into my life 😜:

[The picture used for my story is my grey and white tabby cat as an adult sitting on the recliner in my childhood home withy red curious George sweater over her back.]



Thank you Author Amanda Leigh:

"Our next short story is up on our Cat Chat Writers blog!! We decided to write a short story about a cat being adopted…but write it from the cat’s perspective!!

The first one up is “The Purpose of Bootsie Pussywillow Palmer” by Rebekah Palmer. Jairus Daughter

We hope you enjoy. Please comment on the blog post or this post here when you have read it!Tell us your pet adoption stories!! :D Thank you all so much!! 🌲🌳🍂🪹

You can read this story HERE:
https://thecatchatwriters.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-purpose-of-bootsie-pussywillow.html

"

The Purpose of Bootsie Pussywillow Palmer by Rebekah Palmer Our next prompt is to tell a cat adoption story from the point of view of the cat!! We are called The Cat Chat Writers, so obviously we love...

Alice Oseman's Heartstopper series is such a healthy ya graphic novel series. It really delves into the emotional and mental wellness of teenagers and brings awareness to the things they themselves can do for themselves and the things their loved ones can be supportive surrounding care for them. Good reminders for adults too!



[Images below are from volume 4 of the Heartstopper series. In the first picture spread is Nick and his mom giving him this advice about his boyfriend: "But also knowing that sometimes people need more support than just one person can give. That's love, darling." In the second page it has pictures showing the other support that each individual inside a relationship should have beyond their significant other: "siblings, parents, friends, more friends, a therapist, even teachers, sometimes- that doesn't mean our relationship isn't strong".]

My review on Goodreads:

"This book will spark the fire in your bones to want to do more for all humans through the lens of disability justice. Great descriptions of a disabled life unrepentantly fighting for her will to exist, this autobiography weaves the history of the disability rights movement seamlessly throughout a collective of people. May we continue in justice and power as Judy showed us."



[ID: below is a screenshot of the book BEING HEUMANN AN UNREPENTANT MEMOIR OF A DISABILITY RIGHTS ACTIVIST by JUDITH HEUMANN with KRISTEN JOINER narrated by ALI STROKER. The cover includes a picture of the late Judy Heumann in her middle ages seated in her wheelchair with her face wearing a mischievous grin as her right hand touches her face.]

TW: content includes descriptions of a teen boy after a skateboard and car accident

"I thought about a certain conservative insistence that Christianity (and other religions) can or should exclude q***r people as unclean, sinful, and offensive — at church and in the public square. I’m delighted that many Christian churches, including many in Scotland, fully affirm members of gender and s*xual minorities, but to those Christians who insist on being spiritually exclusionary, I wish you would read this story about my own frightening experience with a child, a hospital, and a chapel....

"Given my youthful experiences with Christianity, which traumatized me as a closeted q***r person, I instinctively push back against almost any spirituality. I recognize my aversion as a trauma response, and I’m okay with that.

"But honestly, I often wonder why so many conservative Christians are okay with it. I often wonder what makes them clutch to spiritual concepts like they own them, like they should be able to deny them to people they disapprove of.

"I’m thinking about that hospital chapel in Edinburgh, about how families who needed that chapel probably experience those rainbow Pride decorations."

-from the below Medium Digest article below titled "If LGBTQ People Offend You Spiritually, Is Your Spirituality Healthy?"

I submit to my followers the early church was split after Jesus's resurrection about the issue of allowing Gentiles to be admitted to Christ's church without becoming spiritually Jewish first, and the medieval church was split over the issue of divorced persons taking full participation in Christ's church. In both those cases, the modern church has been at peace with racial diversity and marital status in their members. Why not welcome and affirm Christians who are along the spectrum of human variance in gender and s*xuality? (More information is available in the book God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines.)



https://medium.com/prismnpen/if-lgbtq-people-offend-you-spiritually-is-your-spirituality-healthy-7abb19f6fdb2

Naked Pastor David Hayward wrote about this print:

"I call this sad but true Saturday cartoon
'Giving Away the LGBTQ'.
I wonder how different life would be for my LGBTQ friends if they could count on the church to accept, include, befriend, support, and advocate for them.
Don't you?
(This cartoon is in my shop!)
➡️ https://nakedpastorstore.com"

The church needs to reconcile welcoming all humans and being clear about it's affirming or non-affirming views. A high percentage of today's LGBTQIA+ folx come from religious backgrounds and unlike their peers are by default being harmed by the church rather than supported.

Bridget Rivera Meditations of a Traveling Nun reports:

"Studies show that q***r people who stay in the church are 30-55% more likely to die by su***de than those who leave.

Let that sink in.

We are MORE likely to die if we go to church on Sunday.

Jesus saves.

It's time for his church to stop killing us."

[ID: print from nakedpastor . It shows a flock of sheep in the distance and in the forefront is three wolves surrounding one rainbow-colored sheep. One of the wolves has a thought bubble above it's head and it reads: "I can't believe it, but they just gave this one to us!"]

"There is a common misconception among Christians that they can holler all day about how evil the g**s are, and how wicked they are, and how dangerous they are, but as long as they don’t scream those words *at the gay people* then they aren’t hateful. I suspect a lot of Christians see hate as something you wield as a weapon, and think that if they phrase the same rhetoric as warnings then it cannot hurt.

What people do not realize is that when you unleash your vitriol within the group, you are still unleashing it on gay people. "

-from the article below by Elora Dodd

🌈 Here’s another blog post for Pride Month! 🌈

👉 Guest Author, Elora Dodd shares the harm children experience when their parents teach hate towards the LGBTQIAP+ community. And the impact that has on that child, when they realize they are a part of the community, they were taught to hate.

👉 “I did not choose to be gay. I did, however, nearly choose to end my own life, partially because I could not endure a life of hurting my family by simply existing. When you raise your child to feel fight or flight every time someone is gay, you risk that they become terrified of their own reflection… I survived. Many don’t. Homophobia kills.”

✨ Thank you, Elora, for sharing your story with The Vashti Initiative. You matter and your story matters.

👇 Link! 👇

https://vashtiinitiative.org/personal-stories/f/i-survived-but-many-don%E2%80%99t-homophobia-kills

🌟 Want to read more of Elora’s work? Check out the link below!

https://linktr.ee/Online1RoomSchoolhouse?fbclid=PAAaYY0oY7NrpCMSys3gVMLBffydbOyP4A7bnAcyMWSojAJJVdqkxnb3XDQG4_aem_th_ARWv_ISAgPgwWED-TzYubtPqr2l9-4m8v3BP3z1cRWIdB3eZv2dbDR2oR6BKXFhghXY

[ID: graphic that has scribbled on it the following words in alternating black and brown for each phrase:

if you've experienced trauma you may need:

* More sleep than most people

* a routine that values gentle movement

*to take breaks during arguments or intense emotional experiences.

*long term therapy even after processing the experience

*Space to check out of Social events & recharge

*More time to get to know someone before trusting them.

From ]

As*xuality and aromantic humans exist and celibacy is a valid life choice. It's when celibacy is forced that it becomes an issue for people who are not oriented to life without s*x.

Jim and Elisabeth Elliot have long been held up as bastions of purity culture within evangelicalism. From their own writing we see evidence of s*xual repression, rather than enjoyment of desire and s*xuality. Whether they were q***r in the 1950s or straight isn't what's most interesting about them, but this self loathing they exhibited in journals for being humans with s*xual desires at all.

Their journey is heavily relatable particularly to how s*xuality is framed within evangelicalism as a whole STILL but specifically landmark Baptist (sect within independent fundamental baptist that believes they can trace their denominational lineage directly to Christ) and Baptist-brider (sect within ifb that claims the Baptist denomination is thee Bride of Christ that is a metaphor in scripture for the church as a whole).



[Episode description:

"On today's episode, friend of the pod and drag performer extraordinaire Dinah House-Fire joins Sadie and Gavi to talk about Jim and Elizabeth Elliot. Elizabeth is the author of the book 'Through Gates of Splendor,' which chronicled her husband's death during an ill-advised missions trip to spread christian colonialism in Ecuador. Elizabeth's later writings were instrumental in the advent of purity culture throughout christian evangelicalism. Subsequent examinations of Jim's journals and Elizabeth's personal writings, however, suggest that there is a sadder story, and lead us to as the question, is purity culture just internalized homophobia and repressed s*xuality? Tune in to hear our thoughts.

TW: In general we talk about a lot of potentially triggering topics on this show, including but not limited to su***de and mental health, racism, misogyny, PTSD and PTSD symptoms, child abuse, mental, physical, and s*xual abuse, and spiritual abuse including guilt, shame, and fear. In most episodes we’ll mention at least a few of these topics, but we try very hard to avoid graphic detail unless it’s relevant to the story we’re telling, and we do our best to give the audience a heads-up before going into detail on any of these topics.]

Ep. 139: Through Gates Of Splendor: The Leaving Eden Drag Brunch (feat. Dinah House-Fire) (Pride Month / Purity Culture / LGBTQ) On today's episode, friend of the pod and drag performer extraordinaire Dinah House-Fire joins Sadie and Gavi to talk about Jim and Elizabeth Elliot. Elizabeth is the author of the book "Through Gates of Splendor," which chronicled her husband's death during an ill-advised missions trip to spread ch...

"I have been through a hell of a lot. A lot of those of us who come down with a chronic illness have already rode the rough seas of life. The last thing we need is a condition that impacts our life the way rare facial pain does. For me, for goodness sake I was born and raised inside a cult. The trauma that I have experienced is tremendous. Leaving at twenty-one was very traumatic in itself. Was it not enough to have survived a cult? Why did I too have to go through something as painful as TN? And why did I have to develop my rare facial pain within the cult?"

-from the blog post It's Not Fair

Rare diseases aren't lived inside a vacuum. We have full lives complete with joys to sorrow all while living rare.



https://lauriegirlthemedicalzebra.blogspot.com/2023/06/its-not-fair.html?m=1

What would really help in regard to human connections is taking the space and time to understand the constructs behind why a person would believe the way they do before addressing the issues. Lived experience in all the ways intersections happen like race, gender, s*xuality, religion, class, ability, size, and age and how that relates to the space geographically and culturally as well as time period the person/people exist in determine so many things about our viewpoints and becomes so personal.

"The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world."

-Plato

"Our culture’s obsession with celebrities can be traced at least as far back as the 18th century. Columbia University professor Sharon Marcus writes about how Jean-Jacques Rousseau published an autobiography in 1782 and then 'complained that everyone was gossiping about him.' During the 18th century, she says, performers and authors began being approached by stalkers, groupies and people asking for autographs.

Marcus explains: 'As literacy expanded dramatically among all classes in North America and Europe, so too did the number of those able to read about celebrities. As leisure time increased, people had more time to visit the theaters, opera houses and lecture halls where they saw celebrities in person. Even more fundamentally, democratic movements in England, France and the United States gave rise to a new emphasis on individuality.'....

"In the same way that so many NBA teams have fascinating stories of dysfunction, over the past couple years in particular, we’ve seen the dysfunction of rightwing Christian pastor celebrities and their ministries. Whether we’re talking about Mark Driscoll, John MacArthur, C.J. Mahaney, Bill Gothard or Hillsong, the stories of abuse and coverups could be written endlessly.

Religion journalists have a responsibility to expose these men, not because it makes for entertaining articles, but due to the unspeakable harm these men cause in their sacralization of male power and obsession with violent glory....

"The reason documentaries and books about abuse in the church are receiving such high ratings is not that the media is out to get Christianity, but that millions of Americans recognize these stories of abuse closely mirror their own stories or the stories of their formerly evangelical friends."

-by Rick Pidcock

Modern Christianity has been heavily influenced by the secular culture of celebrity influence unlike church ages have in the past.



https://baptistnews.com/article/the-influence-of-celebrity-culture-on-the-court-in-the-church-and-in-journalism/?fbclid=IwAR11cZPLaCK_8aNnWRVRaklxzNpgXBnuFp00TqtzHL-vVUrsV7tser6LbS4

In 19th century US American culture, females presenting as males was more societally shocking. The last 60 years of modern US American culture, males presenting as females is more societally ostracized.

Gender is performance and is socially defined by culture. How do people with va**nas successfully act like men and people with p***ses successfully act like women? I'm glad you asked.

Because drag has historically been an art form to make fun of the extremes of manhood and womanhood cultures defined with clothing as symbols. Humans who identify as female and male and nonbinary aren't their genders because of the clothes they wear. Drag teaches us that. Drag is acting.

And like acting, drag can be constructively criticized for it's s*xism in the business. Humans with va**nas and those identifying as femme are seen as stealing power from traditional male performance while humans with p***ses and identify as male are seen as demeaning themselves for donning traditional women's clothing.

There's discrimination based on the clothing one performs in and wears in their life solely based on what traditional USA male and female clothing exhibits. You'll be hated for having a va**na and/or being femme if you present masculine for play or identity and you'll be hated for having a p***s and/or being masculine if you present feminine for play or identity.

From the article It's time for RuPaul to Finally Cast Drag Kings:

"Themme attributed these inequities to s*xism and 'transphobia in our hiring practices and our payment practices', explaining that, broadly speaking, drag kings are typically either transmasculine or femme le****ns. 'There's a gender pay gap whether you're a trans person or whether you’re a femme,' Themme told VICE. 'If you're within that spectrum and you're not a [cis] man, they will try and undercut you because somehow your art is of less value to them within their cisnormative value system'."

https://www.vice.com/en/article/epzg4j/its-time-for-rupaul-to-finally-cast-drag-kings

[ID from the National Museum of American History Smithsonian :

"1857

Charlotte Cushman earned renown for portraying powerful men on stage.

When theater sensation Charlotte Cushman portrayed the scheming, scarlet-robed Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in Shakespeare's Henry VIII she won wide acclaim-while challenging convention. Cushman flouted traditional gender roles in her personal life, too. She wore men's-styled jackets, financially supported her mother and siblings, and lived with a community of 'female bachelors', some of whom secretly were her lovers. Even as she concealed her s*xuality, audience and critics asked: How could a woman so successfully act like a man?"

Also pictured is the scarlet-robes for male Cardinals worn that was donned by Charlotte Cushman]

Conservative and liberal have ceased to be what their definitions purport them to be and instead have become slurs for each other to demonize the other.

Especially when it comes to single issue debates.

This happens with a plethora of modern concepts but the most ardently flamed in the current culture wars is a human group lumped together with the alphabet letters LGBTQIA+.

And only two thought processes are the loudest when there are multiple thought processes combining various outlooks that make up majority reality in these humans lives.

These two thought processes have to be in dire opposition to exist and they feed into each other which only harms the human group identifying under LGBTQIA+.

One purports there is no such thing as human s*xual variance as the default and all are straight while any outliers or deviation from common is the not the norm. The other purports human s*xual variance exists and it's either straight or gay. That's like saying there are only two ethnicities like Jew and Greek or two races like Black and white.

When the majority reality is there is straight, gay, le***an, bis*xual, pans*xual, transgender, inters*x, as*xual and aromatic ext. And we know there are a multitude of races like Asian, Mexican, Latinx, Indigenous, Hmong, European ethnicities ext.

Forcing human beings to all be cis gender and straight should not be the point neither should forcing humans to declare which s*xuality and gender they are in order to judge whether that human can be worthy be the point. Encapsulating a gender identity based on genitalia alone is crude and dehumanizing as is judging s*xuality based on who one is partnered with erasing and dismissing of individual dignity.

Read and listen from multiple perspectives.



[ID: poster outside Fitgers Bookstore in Duluth, MN from Simon & Schuster publishing that shows a human hand lifting up a tome and reads, "Read Banned Books". There is a flame coming out of the top of the tome.]